Welcome back to the deep dive. If you feel like
you blinked during the holidays and woke up to
just the stack of critical high stakes news you
totally missed, you're in the right place. Yeah,
that happened. We're about to tear through the
information that was, well, maybe strategically
or perhaps just clumsily dumped while everyone
was focused on other things. And that's exactly
why we do this. For you, the learner, when information
is released in these huge dumps, be it. legal
rulings or election results, it's often designed
to overwhelm. To kind of obfuscate things. Exactly.
So our mission is pretty simple. Cut through
that noise, find the key insights, and give you
the full context and do it quickly. Okay. Let's
unpack this enormous stack of sources. We're
diving into three main areas today. First, the
political pulse. We have a tiny election sending
some really big signals. Second, some major legal
and accountability dumps, including the latest
and frankly very troubling Epstein file release.
Yeah, that was a mess. And finally, some. Let's
call it controversial policy and culture spending,
highlighted by a naval fantasy and a highly unpopular
renaming controversy. A lot to get through. Let's
start with politics. We have to talk about South
Carolina, HD88, a special election, an election
held two days before Christmas. I mean, that's
the definition of low turnout. Absolutely. Only
about 2 ,000 voters even showed up. But you have
to look at the context of why the seat was even
vacant. OK, what happened? The seat was held
by a Republican, RJ May. who is, well, he's leaving
the state house because of a child pornography
conviction. Oh, wow. OK. So the Republican John
Lassener, he won 62 .3 percent to 37 .7 percent.
Seems like a comfortable GOP hold on the surface.
It does. But this is where the sources reveal
that buried insight. What do those numbers actually
tell us about the political mood? It's about
the enthusiasm gap. It's all about the enthusiasm
gap. This specific district, it went for Donald
Trump by watching 35 points last year. Lassner,
though, he only won by 25 points. So that's a
10 point shift toward the Democrats in a deep
red district. A 10 point shift. And it gets even
starker if you look back to the 2022 race. OK.
Then the Republican won by 41 points. So compared
to that, the shift is actually 16 points. That's
huge. It is. And the analysis suggests this isn't
because Democrats suddenly showed up for a hopeless
election right before Christmas. It's because
Republicans chose not to vote. They just stayed
home. So what's the big takeaway from that? for
the bigger picture. Well, if that lack of enthusiasm
is widespread, if the GOP base continues to just
sit out elections like this, the sources suggest
that could signal a potential catastrophe for
the party in 2026. So that tiny forgotten pre
-Christmas election might be the canary in the
coal mine. It just might be. OK, from a tiny
shift in South Carolina, let's look at a much
bigger fight shaping up. Wyoming, the Senate
race, to fill that recently vacated seat. Right.
And this is turning into a classic money versus
experience conflict. So on the experience side,
you have Representative Harriet Hagman. She's
got a proven track record, statewide wins, and
maybe most importantly, Donald Trump's endorsement.
All big advantages. But then there's the challenger,
the billionaire Reid Rasner. He ran for the other
Senate seat in 2024. His wealth is it's in the
billions. Hageman is guaranteed to lose the money
race. Oh, big time. And while Wyomingites do
historically favor experience, you know, for
over 50 years, pretty much every new senator
has had prior legislative service, which really
favors Hageman. But she had a misstep. She did
a notable one. Back in March, Hagen was booed
at a town hall. She criticized her constituents'
hysteria over federal issues like tariffs. And
that kind of comment plays right into the hands
of an outsider promising change. Absolutely.
But, you know, if voters are truly looking for
a candidate who is both experienced and maybe
a little distant from all the DC drama, there's
a dark horse. The sources suggest keeping an
eye on Governor Mark Gordon. He's a Republican.
He has that combination of statewide experience
and a genuine Washington outsider status. He
could be a real threat if he decides to get in
the race. OK, so that's the political pulse.
Now, if the theme of that segment was political
maneuvering, the theme for our next segment is
accountability or the lack of it. Let's turn
to those massive legal information dumps. starting
with the Epstein files. Yeah, so the DOJ released
a second huge tranche of documents. Over 11 ,000
files, something like 30 ,000 pages. That's a
lot to sift through. It is. But the immediate
takeaway, really, is this highly unusual display
of, well, administrative failure in the release
itself. Which, of course, fueled immediate public
suspicion. We're talking about unforced errors
here, right? Totally unforced. The DOJ made at
least two just... Utterly embarrassing screw
-ups. First, victim names were not properly redacted.
Which violates a congressional law. Violates
the law, yes. And seconds of redactions they
did make were done so poorly that the text could
be recovered, including mentions of Donald Trump.
So this kind of hacky release, the poorly organized
website, it looks less like transparency and
more like they're deliberately trying to hide
something. It certainly raises questions. It
looks like deliberate obfuscation. So let's talk
specifics. What's new about the names involved?
Well, Trump's name appears much more frequently
in this batch. There's an email that confirms
he traveled on Epstein's plane a lot more than
was previously known. And often with Ghislaine
Maxwell. Often with Ghislaine Maxwell, yes. And
furthermore, law enforcement communications,
they explicitly refer to a somewhat lengthy list.
of at least 10 co -conspirators. Which contradicts
what officials have said before, suggesting it
was only Epstein and Maxwell. Exactly. It contradicts
those claims. And we should also note, multiple
documents refer to a member of the British royal
family whose name begins with an A. Prince Andrew.
Almost certainly Prince Andrew. But maybe the
most concerning part is how the DJ handled the
inevitable conspiracy theories that popped up.
The fake letter. The fake letter, yeah. A letter
linking Epstein and Larry Nassar. It was clearly
fake. It was postmarked three days after Epstein
died in New York. But after that, the Duo J posted
this note on X. On X, formerly Twitter. Right.
Claiming that sensational claims against Trump
in the documents were unfounded and false. Why
is that move so significant? Because it suggests
the administration is trying to cast this general
doubt over the entire release. They're trying
to imply that any of these records, no matter
the source, could be phony. Which just strengthens
the belief that they're trying to protect someone.
It really does. And despite their efforts to
muddy the waters, there are credible, previously
reported claims that are now resurfacing. Like
the FBI report from 2020. Yes, the report from
October 2020. It involved a limo driver who overheard
a passenger in 1999 claiming both Trump and Epstein
had raped her. The woman involved later died,
ruled a suicide. And Mark Epstein's claims. And
of course, Mark Epstein continues to claim his
brother was killed to silence him. The whole
release process from the bad redactions to the
administrative spin just leaves that one central
question hanging in the air. Who are they protecting?
That lack of accountability leads us right to
the Supreme Court. We saw a rare 6 -3 loss on
the shadow docket for the former president. This
was about National Guard deployment in Illinois.
Right. And the denial of his emergency application
was notable just because the court... basically
reverted to its normal process. It wasn't giving
any special favor just because a former president
asked. But the real legal meat of it centered
on that phrase, regular forces. Exactly. The
law says the president can only federalize the
guard if he is unable with the regular forces
to execute the laws. And the court used this
as an opportunity to define regular forces very
narrowly. As the regular military. As a regular
military. The actual standing army, Navy, Air
Force. not civilian police, not even National
Guard members acting as civilian law enforcement.
So if a president wants to use federalized guard
troops on US soil, he runs into a very old, very
big legal hurdle. He does. Because the military
is largely restricted from executing laws on
American soil by the Posse Comitatus Act. Can
you just quickly define that for our listeners?
Sure. The Posse Comitatus Act is a long -standing
law that restricts using the US military the
actual regular forces for domestic law enforcement.
OK. So because the court defined the law here
as requiring the military, the president must
first identify the source of authority that gives
him a statutory exception to Posse Comitatus.
And Trump hadn't done that. He had not. And this
really suggests the court is keen on setting
a very high legal bar against using the military
domestically, even if a governor like in Louisiana
might agree to it. That's a powerful precedent
on executive overreach. OK, let's shift gears
now pretty dramatically from legal hurdles to
fantastical spending. We need to talk about the
proposed Trump -class battleship. Oh boy, yes.
The concept drawing alone made headlines, didn't
it? With that stylized image referencing the
assassination attempt on the ship. Beyond the
optics, though, the financial and logistical
problems here are just staggering. The cost is
estimated at 15 to 20 billion dollars, maybe
more. And given all the other promises already
made, the funding sources seem... Completely
theoretical. And logistically it seems like a
non -starter. Totally. Only one U .S. shipyard,
Newport News in Virginia, can even build a ship
this size. And it's already years behind schedule
on aircraft carriers. And staffing it would be
an issue, too. A huge issue. The ship would need
about 500 sailors. That's 200 more than the suits
it would replace. And this is at a time when
military recruitment is already a major challenge.
And then there's the technical complexity, which
is just through the roof, especially with the
weapons. Right. The plan is to put nuclear -tipped
missiles on board, which is highly problematic.
The U .S. stopped putting nukes on Navy ships
back in 1991 under George H .W. Bush. Why was
that? Largely due to procedural complexity and
international treaty limitations. Trying to introduce
a brand new ship design and a new weapon system
at the same time is historically a recipe for
disaster for the Navy. Like the Zumwalt class
destroyer. Exactly like the Zumwalt. A total
failure and this new ship is even more ambitious.
So what's the professional naval critique here?
Is this even really a battleship? Not according
to the experts in our sources. No. At around
35 ,000 tons, it's more like a scaled up LCS,
a literal combat ship, not a true battleship.
And vulnerable. Exquisitely vulnerable. Given
its size and shallow draft, experts suggest it
would just get eaten alive by modern threats
like drone saturation. And the timeline they
gave was 2 .5 years. Which is described as utterly
unrealistic. Experts say the actual timeline
for something like this is more like 10 to 20
years. So it's a proposal designed for political
spectacle, not military reality. That's what
it looks like. Which takes us to our culture
segment. The Kennedy Center honors controversy.
There was subtle change here, but one that signaled
a big political shift. The group photo. Yes.
The longstanding tradition was for honorees to
wear rainbow ribbons, a symbol of diversity,
of unity. And this year, replaced by blue ribbons.
And blue, of course, is the color associated
with the Democratic Party, which is a very curious
choice for the administration hosting the event.
The ceremony itself honored Sylvester Stallone,
Michael Crawford, Kiss, George Strait, Gloria
Gaynor. But the biggest culture bomb was the
proposal to rename the institution itself. That's
right. And the Economist YouGov poll found that
renaming the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy
Center is probably the single most unpopular
action of his second term. What were the numbers
on that? Only 18 % approval against a massive
66 % disapproval. It's just incredibly unpopular.
Why do you think that specific move is so uniquely
unpopular? I think it just crosses a line for
a lot of voters. Stepping on JFK's legacy is
just seen as being in poor taste. But more importantly,
it's a non -consequential cultural issue. It
doesn't affect taxes or foreign policy. Right.
So it allows even the most ardent MAGGA voters
to express their disapproval without feeling
like they're undermining a core policy goals,
kind of a safe place for them to vent. Okay,
finally, we have two quick but important follow
-ups. First, that spiked 60 Minutes story. Right,
this is the piece that Barry Weiss stomped just
hours before it was supposed to air. The story
was investigating the Center for Economic Crisis
and Opportunity Task Force, or CECOD. And the
key takeaway here was the administration's attempted
interference. Yes. The administration did provide
a comment to 60 minutes, but the show excluded
it because it was completely off topic. What
did it say? The comment demanded the show pivot
its focus to angel parents, a term the White
House uses for victims of crimes by undocumented
immigrants instead of the actual story about
Seegicott. So an attempt to hijack the segment
for a political ad. That's how the journalists
saw it. Yes. Unrelated to the Coppica hand. And
lastly, let's revisit that geopolitical nugget
about the DJT -TE fusion merger. Our sources
suggest this is a merger between two badly overhyped
entities. Yeah, fusion power is still a very
long way off. But the key insight here is the
money trail. TAE has existed since 1998 without
generating any revenue. So who's been keeping
it afloat? A major investor has been a company
called Rusnano. And Rusnano is. It is a Russian
state -funded investment company. So the sources
suggest this entire merger has a very clear geopolitical
undercurrent linking a highly speculative American
venture directly to state -backed Russian funding.
We have covered a massive amount of ground today.
From just a handful of voters in South Carolina
signaling a potential GOP crisis to legal dumps
that raise more questions than they answer. To
policy proposals that just completely strain
credulity. And the common thread here really
is high stakes political maneuvering, all disguised
by that holiday information overload. And, you
know, going back to the Epstein files for a second,
that question of who are they protecting just
remains so potent. The DOJ's very visible yet
poorly executed release strategy. It really suggests
a clear interest in controlling the narrative,
if not the information itself. And we noted that
the Supreme Court ruling on the National Guard
added a very specific high legal hurdle that
the president failed to clear. Now considering
the lawfulness of using the military on American
soil is rarely discussed when federalizing the
Guard. What are the full implications of this
narrow definition of regular forces for executive
power moving forward? Does this ruling significantly
limit a future president's ability to deploy
troops domestically in a crisis? That's something
for you to continue exploring as you process
this deep dive. Until next time. Thanks for diving
deep with us.